Painted Steph

A couple months ago I got to a point in which I didn't want to test any more. All the creatives I know (or that were getting in touch with me) wanted to shoot beauty shots. Mainly clean images. My book is bursting at the seam with those!! I want to shoot something different, maybe on location, maybe less polished, maybe with a set (any st designers out there wanting to collaborate? Hint Hint!!), more hair or fashion based instead of make-up based... There are a few images like this to come soon, but I got very excited about a project that I discussed with make-up artist Shell Sullivan.

We wanted to paint a model. Nothing revolutionary, but I also know that when done badly it can look very studenty/amateurish. At long last a test that I could treat as a test! Shooting some images that I didn't know would work.

Shell did an amazing job at ignoring her make-up artist urges to make sure everything was perfect and symmetrical and just went with the flow, keeping the face very bare so that the paint didn't take over too much.

And Steph from Boss Model Management joined us to make the idea a reality. Her AMAZING cheekbones were perfect for the shots! And she put up with us pouring paint all over her very well. (Disclaimer: it was all water-based paint, no models were harmed in the making of this shoot)

I usually shoot with gray or black backgrounds, and I wanted to shy away from that this time (something NEW, I kept telling myself!). So I ended up using a turquoise roll, made darker by black reflector boards on either side (I work in a daylight studio, so I sometimes have to improvise, especially when it's very sunny!). The boards also worked with the deep contrast I wanted to create on the face (changing it up again, most of my beauty work is lit very brightly). I shot everything with a simple beauty dish set-up, but I did use some coloured gels on a snoot to bring out some detail (which was very obvious on the white paint!). Only very subtlely though, I'm not the biggest fan of gels (once AGAIN, I was testing new things out and taking myself out of my comfort zone).

And here are the final results, hope you like them!

MUA: Shell Sullivan
Model: Stephanie Slater @ Boss Model Management